The veteran model told the newspaper she fell ill at home and her son Jack, 20, called 999 and she and Kane were hooked up to oxygen and taken to hospital in the same ambulance.

She tested positive for Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Kane’s condition improved but Lusardi’s worsened, she told The Sun, and a doctor said he did not know if she would pull through.

She added: “I said to him, ‘Am I going to make this?’ and he said, ‘You’re 61, I can’t guarantee anything. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here’.

“To hear that was just dreadful and I just burst into tears.

“I text Sam and they wheeled him up to me.” The couple are now recovering at home.

Lusardi previously urged fans to follow expert advice on self-isolation to halt the spread of coronavirus.

“Please take care of yourselves, loved ones and each other,” she said.

Lusardi, whose TV appearances include Emmerdale, Dancing On Ice and Loose Women, found fame in the 1970s and 80s, and in a 2005 poll was voted the UK’s most popular Page 3 girl ever.